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The Gabriel Garza Movie
The Gabriel Garza Movie (also known as Gabriel Garza's Big Picture Show ''or ''Gabriel's Finale Movie) is a 2002 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Gingo Animation, Universal Television Animation and Universal Cartoon Studios and based on the studio's animated television series of the same name. As the first feature film to be based on a Geo G.series, it was directed by Michael Wildshill. Series creator Geo wrote and executive produced the film; therefore, Wildshill was selected to direct. The film stars the regular television cast of Debi Derryberry, Rob Paulsen, E.G. Daily, Kath Soucie, Billy West, Doug Lawrence, Charlie Adler, Jim Cummings, and Jeff Bennett, with guest roles from Jodi Benson, Dan Aykroyd, Richard Kind, and John Goodman. In the film, Gabriel sets out along with Roge, Leno, Cole, Loy, the Elves, Jan, and their new friend Laurato foil an emerging plan by Vio to imprison all of Sinking Spring. The film was released on July 31, 2002, and received mixed to negative reviews from critics. However, while grossing $89 million worldwide on its $60 million budget, the film underperformed at the box office, forcing a writedown of $57.3 million for Universal. It is currently Gingo Animation's lowest-grossing film, as well as its lowest-rated film, but later found considerably financial success in VHS and DVD sales. The film served as the series finale of the original Gabriel Garza series, as no further episodes were made, resulting in the possible closure of Gingo Animation after BJ and Wally but the success of Metro Cone saved it from closing. Plot After getting tired of failing catching Gabriel and his friends for years, Vio decides to build up a new plan: kidnap the rest of Gabriel's friends and family, including Claire Jones. Meanwhile, on an ordinary day, Gabriel and his friends are hanging out together and relaxing until they meet a cheerful girl named Laura, who orders them to go on a mission to defeat Vio and his henchmen. Gabriel tells his friends that they would head off for Vio's lair, along with Laura. Back at Vio's lair, Claire breaks free and escapes the lair with the help of a pulp man named Mr. Mockles. In a meantime, Gabriel and his gang were almost caught by some of Vio's henchmen Maxio, Big Guy, Mikey and Joe, but Leno and Coleinterfere long enough for the rest of the gang to escape and end up being captured instead. While escaping from Vio's lair, Claire decides to call Gabriel and his friends. She tells them that she is trying to escape the lair, but they say that they are in danger as Leno and Cole were in jail. Shocked, Claire then teams up with Mr. Mockles to rescue Leno and Cole. Meanwhile in jail, Leno and Cole try to escape from prison, but when they saw Claire and Mr. Mockles, Claire grows frustrated with their lack of initiative. Later at Sinking Spring, Vio and his minions attack everyone in town and rename the city to "Viotopolis." Back at Vio's lair, Vio sets a bomb on Gabriel and the rest of his friends and family (minus Claire, Leno and Cole) and Vio tells them that the bomb is a timer and he leaves the room. Then, Leno, Cole, Claire and Mr. Mockles arrive to save them, stop the timer and they escape. When Vio got in the room, he saw that the gang was gone and the timer is stopped. He tells his minions to get them. Gabriel and his gang fight Vio's henchmen for a battle. Leno is given an energy drink, which brings him to move faster than the speed of light. He then found the Tele-O-Manic, Loy's new invention from earlier. Leno puts Vio and his minions inside the Tele-O-Manic to teleport to jail. With Vio gone, Gabriel and his friends celebrate their victory. Claire kisses Roge on the cheek that she was worried about him, telling him how awesome he is and Gabriel, for the first time, speaks to Roge admiringly, calling him "pal". Sarah even embraces Gabriel, whom she has always loathed. Leno then breaks the Fourth Wall by stating that it only took "152 episodes, 4 specials, and a movie". Claire walks off, holding the Garza brothers high, singing the "Friendship Song". Roge labels the screen, "The End". During the credits, shows flashbacks of moments from the original Gabriel Garza series. In a mid-credits scene, deep within the Melon-Cave, Vio seethes in anger, hurt and enraged by the kids' betrayal of him. He declares that Captain Melonhead's goody-goody ways are over and that he will rise again. He takes on the mantle of The Gourd, while one of his henchmen becomes Timber the Dark Shard. Maniacally, he swears to have his vengeance upon Sinking Spring. However, Vio's henchman tells him that there isn't enough time left in the movie, to which Vio replies, "What movie?" Voice cast * Debi Derryberry as Gabriel Garza / Mrs. Picksit / Mallory / Additional Voices * Rob Paulsen as Roge Garza / Additional Voices * E.G. Daily as Leno Garza / Claire Jones / Additional Voices * Kath Soucie as Cole Garza / Christine Garza / Becky / Additional Voices * Billy West as the Elves / Jan Soto / Mikey / Alsen Nosyit / Additional Voices * Doug Lawrence as Loy Garza / Additional Voices * Charlie Adler as Marvin Garza / Maxio / Additional Voices * Jim Cummings as Vio / Joe / Additional Voices * Jeff Bennett as Big Guy / Additional Voices * Jodi Benson as Laura * Dan Aykroyd as Warren Parker * Richard Kind as Darren Parker * John Goodman as Mr. Mockles ADR Loop Group * Bob Bergen * Rodger Bumpass * Jennifer Darling * Paul Eiding * John Kassir * Maurice LaMarche * Sherry Lynn * Mickie McGowan * Phil Proctor * Jim Ward Production Rumors about a possible Gabriel Garza film started since the beginning of the series. Creator Geo G. wrote a treatment for a Gabriel Garza feature film midway through the series' fifth season production in late 1994. It was to center on a dilemma for Gabriel, but it was never pitched. However, in 1998, Geo and the rest of the Gingo team began working on a feature-length film based on Gabriel Garza by putting their finances into Script Development. In September 1999, Gingo officially announced that Gabriel Garza was to star in his own feature film. Animation The film was animated in-house by Gingo in North Hollywood, California and by Wang Film Productions/Cuckoo's Nest Studio in Taiwan and Rough Draft Studios in Korea. Release The Gabriel Garza Movie was originally set to be released as a direct-to-video film in Fall 2002, but in February 2001, Universal announced that the film would be released theatrically. Marketing Coinciding with the film's release, Burger King released eight toys in their Kids' Meals. A video game adaptation was released on the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, and on the PlayStation. * A teaser trailer was released on October 5, 2001, and was shown before Max Keeble's Big Move, Monsters Inc., Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. * The official trailer was released on March 15, 2002, and was shown before Ice Age, Spider-Man, and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. * TV Spots began to air between June and July 2002. Home media The Gabriel Garza Movie was released on VHS and DVD on November 19, 2002. Unlike its theatrical box office performance, the film performed better on VHS and DVD. A Blu-ray version was released on January 23, 2007. A 3D version of the film was released on Blu-ray 3D on December 9, 2014, along with the other Gabriel Garza films. The films were sold separately in 2016. Music The music for the film was composed and conducted by James L. Venable, who also composed the original series. The soundtrack to the film was released by Varèse Sarabande on July 30, 2002. Reception Critical response The Gabriel Garza Movie received mostly mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and fans, praising the film's animation and humor but criticizing its story. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 38% based on 173 reviews, with an average rating of 4.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "The Gabriel Garza Movie's sparkling self-image won't compensate for a messy story stretched way too thin to meet the theatrical-length standards." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film an average score of 43 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Claudia Puig of USA Today stated that "With so many stupid ideas for the its story, The Gabriel Garza Movie has unexpectedly destroyed the entire Gabriel franchise. It feels like an one-hour series finale that should've made for TV instead of movie theaters." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film two stars, stating, "The Gabriel Garza Movie, Gingo's first truly negative response, has a predictably weird plot that even tries hard enough to follow the usual wit of the show, but rather ends up being a 'last call' for the glasses-wearing cartoon boy we all know in love." Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman said, "If it's even not as good as the Gabriel Garza show, The Gabriel Garza Movie is a complete disaster to the series for the fans of the original. I don't even care if the animation is good and the characters have their usual selves from the show, it's just awful that Gingo and its creative team led by Geo G. should be shamed of themselves." Conversely, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying "The Gabriel Garza Movie is a truly touching and hilarious family adventure featuring Gabriel Garza with a blast of humor and soundtrack, as well as a comical plot from the folks at Gingo Animation". Jeffrey Lyons from NBC-TV also enjoyed the film and considered it "sharply hilarious". Box office The film earned $2,129,199 on its opening day, which is the lowest grossing opening day of all time for Gingo. In its opening weekend, it went on to earn $8,649,793 for a $2,227 average from 2,604 theaters, and $10,392,926 since its Wednesday start. It reached fifth place at the box office and faced early competition to Spider-Man, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Scooby-Doo, and Lilo & Stitch, as well as facing competition with two TV series-based animated films (Hey Arnold!: The Movie and The Powerpuff Girls Movie). It became Gingo's first and only film to not debut at No. 1 in its opening weekend. The film closed on October 14, 2002, after earning $27,705,196 in the United States and Canada and $51,694,388 overseas, for a worldwide total of $89,851,603. Following the disappointing box office weekend, financial analysts predicted that Universal Pictures would be forced to have write-down the production costs, which totaled more than $100 million. Following the later release of The Truth About Charlie which also met poor box office returns, it was reported that Universal would have to write-down about $80 million. Accolades